All joking aside, the entire Daily Cougar staff spends countless hours every week making sure we fulfill our mission to bring quality journalism to the University of Houston.

However, all of the hours we put in would be for naught if we didn’t have a great university to report on. We may be the ones who write the stories, but we depend on stellar UH students, faculty and staff for the topics of those stories.

UH offers us a colorful mélange of characters every day, characters that inspire us and provide us with ample material to include within the pages of our paper. We are fortunate that we attend such diverse and innovative university.

The editorial board of the Cougar would like to thank UH for being such an excellent training ground for student journalists. We have the unique privilege of writing about a university that is on the rise. From Tier One researchers to nationally ranked athletes, there is never a shortage of quality topics for us to cover.

We are excited about the future of UH, just as we are excited about the future of the Cougar. It is no secret that our campus is under construction. Well, we are always under construction at the Cougar as well.

Co-news Editor Joshua Mann has been elected as the new editor in chief of the Cougar. He will take the reins of the paper starting this summer. He will continue to build our staff, just as the university will continue building its reputation as a stellar Texas university.

We always have room for Tier One students here at The Daily Cougar, students who will help us continue our assent along with that of the university. We have to say good-bye for now, but we’ll be back as soon as classes begin this summer. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t stay away.

opinion@thedailycougar.com

Let’s consider a more realistic scenario for low-income women: Imagine that a baby girl is born into a family with few resources. This girl attends a public elementary school in a low-income neighborhood, where property taxes are low and the schools are failing.

Teachers at her school have no time to give her the attention and support she needs to thrive, because they are already stretched thin by overcrowded classrooms and under-supervised pupils.

When she goes home in the afternoons, she is left to her own devices, as her parents are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. A boy in her class asks her to hang out, and thanks to a variety of factors – including culture, lack of parental involvement and abstinence-only sex education – this young woman ends up pregnant.

Flash-forward to age 23: Our girl is single and raising two young children on her own. The Texas Legislature has again cut the budget for the Texas Women’s Program she relies on for free breast cancer screenings, birth control and pap smears, and the local women’s clinic she frequented was forced to close.

Now, the Planned Parenthood clinic she switched to is being threatened. In order to receive care and the birth control she relies on for endometriosis and pregnancy prevention, she is facing the prospect of losing valuable paying hours at work in order to travel 10 miles by bus after waiting three weeks, maybe more, for an appointment.

This vignette is not far from the true story of many Texas women’s lives. Access to the most basic gynecological care is being made more and more inconvenient by those who claim to be fighting for the lives of unborn children.

We believe these people, though they mostly have good intentions, are ignorant of the reality of what happens to women like the one described in the story above. More abortions, not less, will result from making it harder to get contraceptives and reproductive care.

Changes in culture and morality cannot come about from worsening the conditions of the lives of those in need, no matter how hard portions of the privileged population wish it to be so. Culture is not that simple because people are not that simple.

We want to help women get the health care they need from the provider they trust and choose. We want to put a stop to the political games. Republicans supposedly want the elderly to get quality health care from providers they feel comfortable with, so why not women?

We stand for policies that treat Texas women respectfully. We ask the Texas Legislature to stand with Texas women, too.

 opinion@thedailycougar.com

“I’m sure glad the revolution is alive and well in Houston,” Ron Paul said to thousands of supporters as cheers echoed off the walls of Hofheinz Pavilion.

Hours before Paul’s speech, a line of supporters sporting their favorite Ron Paul T-shirts and buttons snaked around the block, eagerly waiting to hear the man of the hour make his case for liberty. People of all sorts and ages were in attendance, and the mood was lively to say the least.

As you may have expected, throughout his speech Paul carried the same tune he’s been singing since the start, and it seems like nothing is ever going to change that.

His consistency is truly impressive, and as far as I’m concerned, Paul demands and deserves respect, no matter what ideology you have.

It’s a shame that he doesn’t get the proper amount of attention, because while some of his ideas may be out there, a lot of what he says makes sense.

Thanks to a neglectful media, one of Paul’s biggest setbacks has been his inability to connect with undecided crowds that are already skeptical of him. The delivery of his speeches unfortunately doesn’t seem to match the power of his ideas, and for that reason, crowds that aren’t immediately moved by a rehearsed speech sprinkled with key persuasive words refuse to give Paul a shot.

However, Friday, Paul was in his element and moved the crowd with point after point pertaining to a number of his famous issues ranging from “Ending the Fed” to The War on Drugs without changing his stances. He also had a few things to say about The Patriot Act.

“The names of a bill are exactly the opposite of what the bill does,” Paul advised to the crowd, “if (The Patriot Act) had been called the ‘Repeal the Fourth Amendment’ Act, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten so many votes.”

Although his chances of becoming president were never promising, he continues to stay in the race, which some people find foolish. Paul has said he continues to run because there is continued support, and that was undoubtedly proven on-campus last week.

After hearing Paul speak, it seems that he is just as concerned with spreading his message than he is with winning office, and from that perspective, his campaign has been successful.

He continues to bring attention to issues the other candidates avoid and has garnered a strong, committed following on the Internet and among young people.

If lack of recognition has frustrates Paul, he does not show it.

There is something about Paul that emits authenticity and genuineness, and it is evident there is nothing fabricated in what he says. Whether you agree with his policies or not, Paul is a man who stays uncommonly consistent and trustworthy, and at this point in our nation’s politics, those traits are rare and merit more respect than he’s been given.

Lucas Sepulveda is a creative writing and media production junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

If you didn’t know from the oodles of posters covering campus, Rep. Ron Paul, Republican primary candidate, will take a break from hunting delegates Friday and stop by for a quick visit.

The Liberty For All Super Political Action Committee was on campus Wednesday promoting Ron Paul’s rally by handing out fliers and pamphlets. They gave away airbrushed T-shirts and had candidate comparison sheets.

Thus far, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have yet to grace us with their presence. None of the other Republican candidates managed to show up prior to dropping out either. Had the Texas primaries not been pushed back to May 29 we might have gotten a few more to come by, maybe.

Paul already rallied at Texas A&M University on April 10. He is supposed to make an appearance at the University of Texas today.

And without a doubt thousands of students will show up at each rally. They’ll wear their “Revolution” T-shirts. They’ll shout “President Paul 2012!” and they’ll no doubt spend hundreds of dollars on Ron Paul campaign items like bumper stickers and buttons.

But it takes more than a grass roots round-up of young people to win a primary, not to mention the presidential race.

Romney won the primaries in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware on Tuesday. Ron Paul supporters would be the first to say that Paul didn’t lose; he got second place.

But let’s be honest. Even if Paul wins the Texas primary, he’s still trailing behind Romney. And back when the primary included Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum, Paul just wasn’t getting much attention. He was at the debates. He went to the town hall meetings and yes, he gave rally speeches. Yet the media either ignored him or the delegates just went for Santorum or Romney.

Now let’s talk brass tacks. There are 2,286 total delegates the Republican nominees can get. The winner of the Republican primary needs 1,144 delegates. Romney currently has 832 delegates. Ron Paul has 76.

Oh, and Gingrich has 139, incidentally.

Paul just doesn’t have the mainstream support necessary to win the Republican nomination, and his youth-filled rallies, although effective at energizing young people to care about politics, won’t get him in.

This is why some of his supporters want him to run against the incumbent Democratic nominee, President Barack Obama, and whoever the Republican nominee will be.

If Paul ran as a third party candidate, he still wouldn’t win the presidency, but he could successfully siphon votes from one of the other candidates, much like Ralph Nader did in the 2000 presidential race when he was the Green Party candidate.

But Paul won’t do this, either because he doesn’t want to siphon votes or he thinks he can sink the Republican nomination. Some media commentators think he’s refusing to become the “libertarian” candidate because he wants to set a blueprint for his son, even if he himself doesn’t make it to the White House come November.

Paul can energize the untapped youth and win their support at the UH rally Friday, but that won’t make him the Republican candidate.

David Haydon is a political science senior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

Breivik is charged with destroying basic functions of society under Norwegian law. Authorities say he killed eight people last year by bombing a government building in Oslo, only hours later opening fire at a youth camp at Utøya island, allegedly killing 69 people.

Breivik’s defense is just that — he was defending. He asserts that he was protecting the culture of Norway. He said there is a dictatorship of multiculturalism in the country, and that those trying to advocate for nationalism are prosecuted as racists.

He said only small amounts of immigration are useful for society; large percentages are too much, citing info from the Department of Statistics in Norway that said native Norwegians would become the minority group by 2040. He also cited examples from Japan’s nationalist policies which lead an economy and research culture while rarely garnering criticism for racism.

It is doubtful the law will accept these assertions as a valid justification for his charged crimes.

The media describes Breivik as a far-right fanatic, a crazed madman and a violent terrorist. Breivik thinks of himself as a nationalist, a crusader against Islam and a defender of Norway. The question is, what collection of words describes him? What he did was both violent and political, both attention-grabbing and horrific.

The label of terrorist might be closest. Terrorism is the use of force or the threat of force to make a political statement. If Breivik’s actions are seen as terrorism, he cannot qualify as an insane madman. More specifically, he cannot be saved by an insanity plea, not that he is asking for one.

Breivik has said he was surprised to have survived after the massacre and that he finds even a life sentence an insult. He said he would prefer either complete acquittal or capital punishment — the death penalty. The outline of why he deserves either complete freedom or the ultimate price is less explained by his defense and better relayed by his manifesto.

Breivik’s 1,500 page manifesto, which he distributed electronically en masse around the time of the massacre, incorporates his ideas about nationalism, Zionism and Islam. It also includes his justification for his actions.

In a nutshell, Breivik wrote that people like him see no government action or media attention of the soft intervention of the Islamic world into Norway. As such, the only action that can promote attention is drastic and violent action.

If Breivik gets the death penalty, which Norway does not typically institute, he would be seen by extremists as a martyr. This is probably the title he would prefer.

However, Norway is likely to incarcerate him. Breivik will have to settle for the title of inmate.

Igor Tretyakov is a computer science senior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

The documentary, which recently debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, focuses on Don McLeroy’s campaign to insert creationist teaching into public school textbook material requirements. McLeroy, a dentist, was appointed as chair of the State Board of Education by Gov. Rick Perry. The Sunday school teacher was later replaced by fellow conservative Barbara Cargil.

The documentary focuses on McLeroy’s opposition to scientifically sound material that he believed should not be taught to Texas students.

The material that was the main focus of contention for McLeroy and social conservative members of the board were lessons that included sections where students are instructed to compare chimpanzee and human skulls, learn about the fossil record — if only bones could talk — and a section on cell complexity.

According to a reviewer of the contentious material — a reviewer who was appointed by members of the board — the material is the lessons contained some “errors”. By errors it is safe to assume the reviewer meant that the material was not supportive of creationism.

Cargil was willing to compromise with fellow members of the board, even if they were very small compromises.

If one watches the trailer of the documentary they will hear this little gem of a quote from McLeary: “Our religion says that we are all created in the image of God. And because every little child is created in the image of God, I want to see that they have the best opportunity possible.”

It’s no wonder these buffoons have been all but stripped of their power. Now publishers of textbooks will be able to go straight to schools with their materials, instead of having to go through the board first.

This was made evident last week when a female UH student was attacked at a nearby gas station. She was luckily victorious in fighting off her three attackers who attempted to sexually assault her, but not many individuals are so lucky.

The Violence Against Women Act enacted in 1994, reauthorized again in 2000 and 2005, is up for reauthorization again.

The reauthorization addresses campus disciplinary proceedings and would force campuses to hold perpetrators accountable to stricter punishments according to the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women.

Even the National Network to End Domestic Violence has shown that VAWA provides federal money to their Sexual Assault Services Program and prevention programs, created a National Resource Center on Workplace Responses, and provides training to law enforcement and health professionals to improve their responses to domestic violence and sexual assault victims.

The costs associated with domestic violence and sexual assaults alone are staggering. According to the Bureau of National Affairs, domestic violence is estimated to cost US employers up to $13 billion a year.

Costs to victims of rape are estimated by the National Institute of Justice to be $127 billion a year.

Studies have shown that since its enactment, VAWA has saved lives of countless individuals and money for the United States, up to $12.6 billion in averted costs within the first six years.

VAWA is necessary because it creates safer communities, supports victims and holds offenders accountable. Support for reauthorization should not be a debate; it should be supported unanimously.

Please contact your local members of Congress to let them know you support the VAWA reauthorization to end the war on domestic violence and sexual assault.

Maria Reyna, Christina Veillon, Scarlett Badal, Amanda Deloy are first-year Master of Social Work students and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

Hutchinson could have had a fourth term all the way through. She was the incumbent after all, she stood a good chance. No need to worry, there is a plethora of candidates running for the seat. And vice versa: because of the low turnout of voters under the age of 29, they won’t be worried about you.

Just to name a few of the candidates: Ted Cruz, the former State Solicitor General. David Dewhurst, the current Lt. Governor. Tom Leppert, the former mayor of Dallas.  Cruz and Leppert have already met with newspapers like the Houston Chronicle and made their case for why they should get the seat. Dewhurst and other candidates aren’t far behind.

And they’re all the same old same old. Candidates like Leppert think Washington has “career politicians”, most of them lawyers. Incedentally, Leppert was the Chairman and CEO of the Turner Corporation, and once served on the board of directors for Washington Mutual.

These aren’t accusations. It’s hard to say what a lawyers priority is if not the law, but there is no doubt that a businessleader’s priority is profit. It’s in their genetic makeup. Profit is why they’ll push for projects like the Keystone XL pipeline before choosing more eco-firendly alternatives like nuclear energy or natural gas. Profit is why so many businessleaders (generally speaking) are against Social Security and prefer unregulated free market capitalism.

They’re not all alike, but few candidates will give two shakes of a dead dog’s tail about the young vote — it’s  generally nonexistent. Young people have ideas, sure, but English majors who squawk about George Orwell and Ayn Rand, but don’t vote, shouldn’t be surprised when Washington doesn’t adopt their brilliant plans to fix the economy.

With voter turnout skewed, the next senator is going to continue business as usual, with little care for the grievances and opinions of the young.

“Salute the rank, not the man.”

The distinction is clear. An officer of the United States military is an honorable and respectable individual, distinguishing him or herself from the rest of the world because of their strict adherence to values.

For instance, a strong sense of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage are all things soldiers must have. A soldier of the U.S. Army knows that his duty is to serve and protect the people and uphold the Constitution.

So it should come as no surprise why the leaders of Fort Knox decided to cancel Ted Nugent’s concert after the right-wing, washed-up guitar hero and gun rights activist made remarks that some have construed to be a threat on the life of a president.

The offensive remarks? Nugent declared at a recent National Rifle Association convention that if President Barack Obama was re-elected, then Nugent will “either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

The remark itself seems inoffensive at first up until the path of common sense leads to the realization that Nugent was alluding to the assassination of an American president, one that he himself might orchestrate.

Nugent has since defended himself after the Secret Service decided to have a civil chat with the rocker, and while the Secret Service have expressed that they will be continuing an investigation into his affairs, Nugent’s fans and Twitter followers have been in an uproar against his concert’s cancellation as well as what some feel to be an encroachment on the First Amendment.

Let’s make things perfectly clear — Nugent in no way represents the thoughts and feelings of all right-leaning Americans, nor does he represent the thoughts and feelings of fellow gun enthusiasts, owners, and activists. Most of us are responsible and sane adults who don’t make a habit of threatening our politicians with violence such as chopping off their heads, as Nugent so eloquently suggested during the same convention that he made the offending remarks.

That being said, Nugent also doesn’t represent what a true American citizen should do and instead represents everything that is wrong with these right-wing celebrity blowhards that think that they can relate to the Republican base.

We’re not stupid. I don’t think a single responsible and intelligent Republican voter would so much as waste their breath on a statement insinuating a threat against an elected public official.

Shooting a 10-point buck is worth more than shooting some unworthy Capitol Hill lobbyist sycophant. At least the deer can do something to put food on the table.

Nugent’s remarks were an absolute threat against the president and the only reason that he wasn’t arrested by the Secret Service is because he weaseled out of it by calling his threat an analogy.

Although provocative, his words weren’t entirely condemning since they were worded so broadly. However, given the context and his past suggestions for Obama to “suck on (his) machine gun,” he hasn’t exactly made a good case for himself.

Nugent is an embarrassment to the American Right, to gun owners across the nation and to every service man and woman who he pretends to represent.

In America, we do not threaten our elected officials.

The US president should be the most respected and feared man on the face of the Earth because he is the leader of the Free World and Commander in Chief of the most effective, lethal and professional military force to ever exist in the history of human civilization.

Obama as a person, and as a politician, might be contemptible — whose only hopes of re-election are the incompetent foul-ups of the GOP and its celebrity supporters — but Obama the president is just that, the President of the United States of America, and so long as he is president, he will be given the proper respect as the privilege of his rank demands.

James Wang is a history freshman and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

The article begins with the “atheist professor” forcing one of this students to stand so that the professor may tell him all that is wrong with that student’s beliefs. The professor continues to act as not only a horrible teacher, impressing his own views onto students, but also a terrible person in general as he implies that this student is naïve or an idiot.

Suddenly — not so suddenly, really — the tables turn as the cool, calm theist tears down his teacher. The student makes the professor’s so-called illogical disbelief in a deity seem to be the idiotic point of view.

This angers me tremendously. No, this is not because I am not a religious person. It is so tiring to see blatant, exaggerated and false characterizations of these two groups — the theists and the atheists. Just as when atheists make their own propaganda on how stupid they find theists to be, when theists place one horrid person as the representative of an entire group, only hatred breeds.

Have you ever noticed how much death has been caused by trying to impress one’s beliefs onto others? The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Ottoman Empire’s jihad against Europe, the fallout from the Protestant Reformation, the Irish civil war, the current Middle East conflict, Pakistan and India, the oppression of the religious in the USSR — the list goes on and on. From both sides of the never-ending conflict there is a desire to pick the worst of the group to generalize and characterize all the rest.

Has no one ever heard of coexistence? Spreading around propaganda such as that link enrages me not because it comforts those religious after they have dealt with the equally revolting atheist attacks, but because it serves only to perpetuate a stereotype that is simply not true.

Stop circling all the hateful propaganda, and just start accepting how others are — not like you.

Julie Heffler is a biochemistry freshman and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

“Success is the attainment of goals you’ve set for yourself in life,” Terry used to advise the many he’s mentored, according to terryfoundation.org. And in accordance with his own motto, Terry was the perfect model of success.

After serving as a patrol torpedo boat captain in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Terry was recruited by Procter & Gamble to help set up a chain of appliance stores in which he served successfully as general manager until 1951. He later decided to go into business for himself and founded several businesses including Marathon Manufacturing and Crutcher Resources. In 1981, he founded the Terry Companies — a multi-state oil and gas exploration corporation.

There came a time, however, when Terry reflected on the good fortunes he’s had in all his business ventures and wanted to give back to the community, to help young people who had the potential to be just as successful but might need that initial boost.

Howard and Nancy Terry created the Terry Foundation in 1987, providing full-ride, four-year scholarships to students entering their freshman year at select Texas universities. Currently sponsoring approximately 800 students at eight different colleges, including the University of Houston, the Terry Foundation has put more than 2,600 students through college since its inception and will continue to provide educational funds for talented students after Terry’s death.

Not only did Terry lead a long, successful life, but through selflessness he sent many others well on their way to success as well. Students should take the loss of this great man as a reminder to think back on the people who have given them the opportunity to be who they are today, and say thank you.

Howard Terry is survived by his wife Nancy; children Harry Terry, Suzann Terry Smith, Victoria Terry Steinhoff and Cindy Terry Hempel; 14 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.

Based on a recent survey, it seems that the pace will only grow faster as we enter the near future.

Two out of three experts surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project think that by 2020 most Americans will have completely replaced cash and credit cards with their mobile phones — as if the illusion of a monetary system could get any more imaginary. Even Visa knows the trend is growing. The emerging markets section of Visa’s mobile page highlights the dominance of mobile payments in the third world:

“Nowhere is the power of mobile payments more apparent than in developing economies where mobile penetration outpaces bank card availability. Using existing mobile devices to access and transfer funds, to make payments, to pay bills or to top-up wireless air time, mobile financial services represent a ‘leapfrog’ technology in these under served regions.”

While the convenience of having all your money on one mobile machine is attractive, avoiding the demanding effort of searching through a wallet, the dependency we have on phones now is a problem. We overestimate the stability of technology, especially technology that we don’t understand enough to which we can be so loyal. This is not to mention glitches like the recent Gmail crash that can cause more serious issues than missing an email once we begin relying on Google to make purchases.

Apps like Google Wallet have already made the buy-through-phone option possible for users, held back only by the lack of vendors supported. Needless to say, the name combination — Google and wallet — invokes a sense of paranoia to such a degree that chills can be seen rolling down any privacy-conscious user’s spine,

A normal wallet doesn’t have the drawbacks that Google does — neither does cash. Cash doesn’t need a battery, cash doesn’t glitch and cash doesn’t break just in time for the next upgrade.

Is using our phone to make purchases really that much easier? Technology’s purpose is to improve the quality of life, but advances like these are needless and just add more problems. As the saying goes, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” That being said, maybe these experts are wrong, and it is likely they are. Cash is still king — for now, that is — and phones, which cost money and require data plans, will have a hard time knocking the king off the throne.

The concept of paying for something to pay for something just doesn’t seem logical. Credit cards were once said to replace cash, and so far, have not done so, but have contributed a fair share of trouble themselves.

Still, it’s getting harder and harder to go without some sort of plastic card for transactions over the phone or online. What separates cash from plastic and smartphone apps is what keeps cash on it’s high place — security.

The high cost of smartphones mixed with the public’s security concerns will undoubtedly limit the popularity of phone transactions. The year 2020 seems too near for such a bold prediction. However, that’s not to say that sometime soon the experts will be right.

Maybe some day, smartphone transactions will be more reliable and safer than cash or debit cards, but as of now, I don’t think it is. Advancing with the times is important. I’m not saying technology hasn’t been an extremely helpful and crucial part of our society because it has, but we seem to be in a technological transition era that may have a disastrous outcome if we aren’t careful.

Recently it seems like we’ve been working towards a future shadowed by laziness and a reliability on flawed computers. As we continue being fed new and powerful technology, we should be cautious with every bite.

Lucas Sepulveda is a creative writing and media production junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

“I’m certainly going to give that the appropriate consideration,” said Perry, regarding his 2016 presidential ambitions.

“My instincts are very positive towards it right now, but we’ll wait until after the legislative session to make that announcement.”

What? How does Perry even view this as an option? He must realize how much he embarrassed our state during the 2012 primary. He became the walking, talking, embodiment of every known Texas stereotype. Not to mention, the president — really, any elected official — should have the mental capacity to memorize lists that contain more than three bullets.

This is what we recommend to Perry. If he is seriously considering running for president in 2016, he should stop by our office first. Once he gets here we will instruct him to lie down on our couch where he will be given the option to listen to a montage of embarrassing sound bytes from the 2012 primary season. If he decides he wants to listen to it, we will play our montage for him.

After that is finished, we will describe to him why he should not run for president in 2016. It will be a very detailed — almost medical — explanation. When that is finished, we will tell him to take 24 hours to carefully consider his decision.

Our hope, of course, is that after going through this ordeal he will decide to abort his nascent campaign.

In a nutshell, the Transportation Security Administration is going to have some counter-terrorism experts conduct random searches with passengers on METRO buses. Hopefully these experts won’t be the same touchy-feely, crotch-groping people the TSA hires at the airport.

Houston is the guinea pig for this program known as “BusSafe.” It started in Houston last week but will eventually be implemented in other metropolitan cities.

The TSA counter-terrorism experts will ride the buses citywide, randomly check bags, randomly question passengers, do K-9 sweeps and have plainclothes officers at all the bus stops and rail platforms to keep their eyes peeled for “criminal” behavior.

How about no? My backpack is my backpack, my laptop is my laptop and my pockets are my pockets. Citizens may be in public but the content of their belongings are not.

This program will do little to prevent terrorism, and do more to invade the privacy of innocents while apprehending an occasional marijuana smoker or graffiti artist.

Since the TSA is going all Big Brother on the METRO system, we might as well start wearing black, bulky trench coats, throw on a pair of mirrored sunglasses, carry duffle bags and ride the METRO rail from UH-D to Hermann Park. At least then the counter-terrorism experts will have some probable cause to justify their invasion of privacy other than finding a joint in some kid’s pocket.

The BusSafe press release contained a quote from METRO Police Chief Victor Rodriguez, which highlights the problem with their reasoning on safety and prevention of terrorism:

“We have one of the safest transit systems in the world in Houston. One way we are able to keep it that way is through the use of deterrents such as uniformed and plainclothes officers patrolling our system and aggressively addressing suspicious and criminal activity.”

So people might be safer with TSA agents eyeballing their belongings. Safety shouldn’t be a replacement for freedom. And deterrents are not synonymous with prevention. You don’t prevent the flu by locking up people in clean rooms during the winter.

As low-level as it is to bring in a strawman, people are going to say things like, “Do you want another terrorist attack?” and “The cost of freedom,” blah blah blah.

Let me answer these now: There has not been, nor will there likely be, a terrorist attack on a Houston METRO bus. Why would Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the infamous underwear bomber, want to light his pants on fire on some no-name bus route in the middle of Third Ward? How would that bring down the US capitalist dogs oppressing people of the world? It wouldn’t, but for some reason the TSA thinks it’s likely enough to happen that we need agents on the bus.

This TSA BusSafe program is fascism. That’s an overused buzzword these days, but BusSafe meets the definition. And it’s not the fun kind of fascism like Batman assaulting criminals in alleyways or the Galactic Empire sending the imperial army to kill the rebel alliance. This is the kind of fascism that makes you want to vomit.

METRO already has a tough time as it is selling bus passes and encouraging people not to drive alone in cars. They’re going to have a much tougher time doing so with the TSA breathing down everyone’s necks.

David Haydon is a political science senior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

The dog suffered diarrhea at one point, and Romney stopped at a local gas station to hose him down and then proceeded to put the dog right back up on the roof. Little did he know that this incident would haunt him today.

Ann Romney defended her husband, saying, “The dog loved it. He would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation. It was to me a kinder thing to bring him along than to leave him in the kennel for two weeks.”

Some dogs like the smell and taste of rat poison, but it’s up to the owner to make sure the canine doesn’t hurt himself. Seamus might have seemed like he liked it, but the ride was obviously making him sick. Anytime something like this happens it’s up to responsible dog owners to notice their animal’s behavior and change the situation. Media and dog owners everywhere weren’t going to let Romney forget what he had done. These actions have put a damper on his current presidential campaign.

However, Romney and his supporters have found some refuge in that old saying “fight fire with fire” because of a little golden nugget hidden in President Barack Obama’s memoir, “Dreams of My Father.” In the book, Obama describes an incident where he was served and tasted dog meat in Indonesia. He talks about his culinary experiences with his stepfather Lolo.

“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chili peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy),” reads the passage.

The conservative media has pounced on this, and the mudslinging has begun. Yet, at least for Obama, it’s not so black-and-white. He was nine and ate what was served. This says more about Obama’s culinary boldness than it does about condoning cruel acts against animals. A child eats what you serve them, and it’s sort of ridiculous to attack him for trying new things. Whole cultures eat dog, and that’s the norm for them. Are we going to attack them too? Many Americans have said that they have tried dog when abroad. Some might find the idea of eating dog atrocious, but then again, foreigners might find what we put in our mouths equally as nasty. Things like the so-called pink slime that most ground beef has in it, as well as the genetically modified food we consume, have recently come under fire.

Romney might defend his actions, but they were cruel. Some owners make mistakes, and maybe he didn’t realize Seamus would get sick, but there’s no excuse for keeping him on the roof of the car for the remainder of the trip. This obviously shows how uncaring Romney is.

Alejandro Caballero is a creative writing junior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

This year, Austin became a no-kill city and saved 91 percent of animals from being euthanized unnecessarily.

According to austinpetsalive.org, “A no-kill community is one that doesn’t kill healthy or treatable pets. There are many different interpretations of what ‘healthy and treatable’ could mean, but the communities leading the way have found that at least 90 percent of pets entering the shelter fit into one of these two categories. Thus, communities that are considered no-kill save 90 percent or more of the pets that enter the shelters.”

Austin’s success hinged on crucial legislative victories because of its being a community that values its furry counterparts, but it didn’t happen overnight. It was a three-year process, but hard work paid off. Austin residents can be proud of their animal treatment policies.

In Nov. 2009, Austin’s City Council passed a resolution which directed their city’s staff to work with Austin’s Animal Advisory Commission. The two came together to develop an implementation plan that was released by March 2010. The Commission recommended changes that would get Austin to a save rate of 90 percent.

On March 11, 2010, a bill including the recommendations passed Austin’s City Council with bipartisan support. It was a clean-sweep (7-0) decision. Perhaps the most visible facet of the bill is a moratorium on killing animals if cages are available, which sounds like common sense to me.

Austin Animal Center is Austin’s only facility that kills. They do not turn away any animals, similar to Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC). Before March 2010, if a dog did not meet the qualifications for adoption he was placed on the euthanasia list and was killed the following morning.

According to nokillhouston.org, five shelters in Houston practice the same procedure, including BARC, Harris County Animal Control, Houston SPCA, Houston Humane Society and the Citizens for Animal Protection.

Austin Animal Center helped remedy the problem by no longer producing a euthanasia list. They now produce a “no holds” list. If cage space capacity is reached, the animals on the aforementioned list are euthanized first. Rescue centers work in accordance with Austin Animal Center to save many of the condemned pets.

Countless animals have been saved in Austin. In Houston, however, we leave the death of defenseless animals to a business decision.

We have not succumbed to our better angels. As a city which prides itself as a pet-friendly place, we can do better. We should do better. Mayor Annise Parker promised to nudge the city in a direction similar to Austin, in terms of animal treatment.

Parker was given a No Kill questionnaire from then congress person, Jolanda Jones while on the campaign trail. She was asked, “Would you commit to making ‘no kill’ — defined as killing less than 10 percent of pets sheltered at an open-admission shelter — the official policy of Houston and support any laws or policy changes necessary to achieve this goal?”

She answered, “Yes.”

Unfortunately, the reforms have been miniscule and as a consequence, the results are miniscule. Houston is not close to attaining no-kill status. From 2010 to 2011 the kill rate at BARC has only dropped three percent. For March 2012, the kill rate for BARC was 46 percent.

In March alone, 1,009 dogs and cats were euthanized at BARC, according to results BARC releases each month.

Parker’s tenure in office was supposed to close the gap between Houston and Austin’s animal policies, but it remains the same.

Moderna Museet Museum of Modern Art in Skockholm, Sweden held an instillation Sunday to highlight female genital mutilation. An artist for the instillation produced what many are calling the most racist cake ever.

The cake was in the shape of a naked black woman’s torso. Makode Aj Linde, the creator of the cake, hid under the table holding the cake. He wore blackface and held his head above the table, right where the cake ended. Every time someone cut into the black frosting and red, velvety insides, he made exaggerated groans and screams as if he were a victim of female genital mutilation.

Linde uploaded a video of the instillation on to Facebook and of course, uproar occurred. The African-Sweedish-Association called it a racist spectacle.

The art was provocative by design, it was bizarre on purpose and no doubt it raised awareness of female genital mutilation. But still, attention whoring is attention whoring. There’s nothing worse than an artist who smears the medium of art in order to appear edgy and popular.

“In our view, this simply adds to the mockery of racism in Sweden,” said Kitimbwa Sabuni, a spokesman for Sweden’s African-Swedish Association.

He’s right. While the cake may have been meant to draw attention to the issues of racism and genital mutilation, it made a mockery of those issues instead.

But there is no doubt — surveillance cameras are not obsolete. Privacy International estimates that there are more than 25 million closed-circuit television cameras in operation right now. They’re in the gas station at Scott and Elgin. They’re in the cab you took to get to downtown yesterday. They’re on the street corners, albeit deactivated. They’re on campus as well.

The University of Houston Department of Public Safety monitors approximately 500 security cameras. These cameras cover parking lots, inside and outside buildings, corners, high traffic areas and any other nooks and crannies. Frighteningly, they’re only adding more. Why add more? The UHDPS website has an explanation:

“The safety of our campus community is the driving force of UHDPS. Reducing the opportunity for individuals to commit crimes on campus is crucial to providing a safe learning and working environment. This is the primary reason we are implementing a plan to install additional video security cameras in selected areas.”

UHDPS wants to monitor criminals. That’s fine, although monitoring everyone to monitor criminals treads murky water.

UH cameras record 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. UHDPS says the cameras are intended to monitor crime, but they’re also monitoring you as you walk to class, when you pick your nose and when you adjust your bra strap. UH cameras are looking when you sit and smoke a cigarette, but since the cameras are grainy, it might be a joint for all they know.

Are these cameras invading student privacy? UHDPS says the system is not in restrooms, locker rooms, living quarters or the examining areas at the UH Health Center. Since being in public is by definition not private, they’re in the clear.

Security cameras aren’t a problem by themselves. They’re cheap, low-quality and can’t tell who is who through the grainy image that feeds into the 24-hour monitoring room. The problem is in the law and the technology.

Houston voters banded together to ban the controversial red-light cameras in a referendum last year. The legal battle took months, and millions of dollars were on the line for both the city and for the company that set up the traffic-violation-trapping lenses. However, these were legally contracted public cameras. The law on hidden cameras varies from state-to-state. Of course criminals and voyeurs don’t care much for following the law, so why would they have scruples about installing a hidden camera inside a dressing room or over an ATM?

The increase in digital technology is just as concerning as the law. Face recognition software is too pricey for UH, but in areas like the UK, closed-circuit television cameras have already gone through the trial version with good success. German airports use the software with ease and the US Department of State has approximately 75 million photos in its face recognition database for processing visas.

The issue of privacy is not trivial. Proponents of cameras say they’re no big deal, and that people who have nothing to hide need not worry. The argument is if you buy a laptop with a camera or own a device with a lens on it, you have no right to worry about surveillance.

Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who jumped to his death two years ago, would probably disagree.  Clementi felt the need to commit suicide after his roommate used iChat messaging software and a pair of webcams to spy on Clementi’s romantic life and then tweet about it.

The Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia issued laptops to students in 2010, which contained pre-installed webcams (in addition to remote-activation software). The school acknowledged that webcams were remotely activated 42 times over 14 months, “to find missing, lost or stolen laptops” since many students took the laptops to and from school. Without student knowledge, the schools remotely accessed the laptops to secretly photograph students, read their chat logs and record which websites the students went to.

The school agreed to pay $610,000 in the resulting class-action lawsuit. The students hopefully learned a lesson about leaving laptops on 24 hours a day.

Still, keeping a webcam off isn’t difficult. What about a hidden camera? With $45 and a debit card you can get a pinhole-sized spy cam off the internet that will easily fit just behind a ventilation shaft, inside a smoke detector or a fake ceiling sprinkler. Not to mention the different software programs that allow remote control of desktop, laptop, smart phone and tablet cameras.This isn’t government-level tech. Spy cams are so readily available even a poor James Bond could afford one.

There’s a good chance a camera is staring you in the face right now. Say cheese.

David Haydon is a political science senior and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.

It would also be ridiculous if the media continues to cover this story for the remainder of Romney’s campaign.

Yes, you should not strap your pets to the roof of your car while going on a vacation, even if they seem to enjoy the overexposure.

However, with everything Romney stands for, the fact that he strapped his dog to the roof of his car should be considered a minor issue.

It’s as if the media is trying to promote this story because it displays some sort of character flaw of Romney — a flaw they are trying to carefully develop.

Romney has plenty of flaws already. There is no reason to try to brand him as a heartless animal abuser.

Ann Romney gave a great explanation for the incident to ABC’s Diane Sawyer:

“Once, he — we traveled all the time and he — he ate the turkey on the counter. I mean, he had the runs. But — he would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation. It was to me a kinder thing to bring him along than to leave him in the kennel for t – in — in — in a kennel for two weeks,” Ann said.

Could you argue with her decision? This is a situation where the media should just let sleeping dogs lie.

But with Rick Santorum out of the running, the race has essentially fallen into Mitt Romney’s lap.

Newt Gingrich is likely to divorce our nation and marry China for the money, so long as our largest debt holder ignores Gingrich’s 84 ethics violations.

Ron Paul, sad to say, is apparently a figment of our imagination. He is a good guy, running an honest, consistent politician running on the merits of financial responsibility and independence, not muddling his hands in the social dogma that’s distracted our country for the last several months. He hasn’t been absorbed with the never-ending bouncing from social issue to social issue that our country has partaken in while our gas prices continue to rise up and over that four-dollar mark.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that Paul is just a character in a how-to manual for politicians, quietly collecting dust in the bottom of a desk somewhere. Romney is the Republican nominee for the presidency. What are we working with, Republicans?

This is what Republicans are working with: a consistently inconsistent, white-collar, super suburbanite whose most damning quote is “Corporations are people too, my friend.” His idea of social welfare is general indifference — why care about them if they already have a “safety net?” The GOP’s current champion against President Barack Obama is the most far-removed person from your typical Joe Schmoe since Mr. Magoo. I watch NASCAR. I would love to meet Dale Earnheart Jr. and shake the man’s hand.

Romney is friends with NASCAR team owners. He says he’s hunted all his life. He’s hunted once when he was 15, then again six years ago. He makes $10,000 bets just because he can and his idea of fresh air for his dog is strapping it to the top of one of his wife’s two Cadillacs.

Romney represents a very select percentage of the Republican Party. One might be tempted to say the very top percent. The first percentage, if you will. But when the stereotype of the Republican’s stance on social issues is brought up, gone are the suits of the one percent, and on are the cowboy hat and overalls of the average Joe.

Now we have the true base of the Republican party: simple working class men and women, the people that are sitting next to you on the bus, next to you in class and eating in front of and behind you at the McDonald’s.

The Republican base is supposed to be the blue-collar backbone of America. Don’t spend what you don’t have and don’t take a dime if you hadn’t earned it. That’s blue-collar philosophy. That’s Southern philosophy. That’s Texas philosophy. Romney doesn’t respect any blue-collar values. He smears caviar all over them. When he tries to sympathize with us, he patronizes us.

As a note, not a mention of his policies has been made thus far. I haven’t spoken a word about what he’s said on the economy, on foreign policy or on social issues, and it is mostly because it is difficult to keep up with the rate of stances he keeps changing.

I speak on his character as an individual and as a man, and he doesn’t hold a grain of salt to what the Republican Party needs in a candidate because what the GOP needs is someone who can, at the very least, hold a train of thought for more than five seconds without flipping tracks.

But at the way the primaries have been going and the way the media is treating a certain more respectable, honorable and consistent candidate, Romney’s essentially got the nomination on a golden, jewel-encrusted platter.

So congratulations to presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on his victory — by default.

James Wang is a history freshman and may be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.